Page 4 of Blue Arrow Island
Excerpt from a police training manual written by Ben Hollis
I was five years old when my father gave me my first self-defense lesson. He taught me where to kick to inflict the most pain and how to shove my thumbs into an attacker’s eyes and push until they squish back.
And how to scream like a warrior. My voice, he always told me, is my greatest weapon. I use it now.
The raw, visceral sound that travels up my chest and out of my mouth takes the person grabbing me by surprise. I stomp on her foot and swiftly kick her knee back. She drops with a swear that’s half grunt.
I crouch, taking in the chaos around me. A massive man with long, tightly woven braids is fighting someone, blood spraying through the air as the huge man lands a punch to the other guy’snose. A prisoner is crawling out from between them, frantically trying to clear the sand from his eyes.
The peaceful beach has become a battlefield. I don’t even know who’s on which side. The people waiting for us are all dressed similarly. Some have their faces painted with dark smudges.
“Come with us!” a woman cries, her expression as terrified as the prisoners’, even though she has a spear in her hand. “We’ll get you to safety!”
“Stop fighting me!” someone says, using a staff to block punches.
“Leave me the fuck alone and I will! I got sent here for murder and you’re about to be next.”
He swings at the staff wielder and hits him square in the jaw. A flying arrow lodges in his upper thigh and he howls with pain, dropping to his knees.
“Briar!”
I turn toward the voice and see Amira taking off toward the jungle. I follow, but I only make it a few steps before a powerful arm wraps around my chest and picks me up.
“I’m here to help you,” a deep voice growls. “Don’t fight me.”
Yeah, right. The guy whose head is bleeding all over the sand a few feet away might have believed that, but I don’t.
I squirm, kicking him as hard as I can with my feet in the air. He starts to walk, my panic rising. I won’t be dragged into the jungle and violated. These people are savages, but that’s nothing new to me. The only novelty is the tropical island location.
Wait, though. I remember another one of my father’s lessons and I reach for my attacker’s balls, my hand landing on his thigh. I feel my way there, then twist and squeeze until there’s a painful burn in my fingers from the force.
“Fuck!”
He drops me and I scramble upright, running. If I can get to the jungle, I can hide. Evading capture kept me alive for more than three years after the virus until my luck ran out when Lochlan saw me at a market. I was there to trade for food; he was there to stomp on people who couldn’t fight back.
“Listen to me! We won’t hurt you!”
The blond woman from the second group is standing on top of a huge boulder, yelling. She’s lean and muscular, her expression earnest. I don’t know if she’s crazy or arrogant for standing up there without any weapons. Maybe both.
“Get behind this rock and we’ll protect you! You have my word!”
Words are worth as much as hundred-dollar bills in New America. An arrow slices toward her, and she dodges to the side to avoid it, somehow not falling off the rock. Another follows it and she dodges again, glaring in the direction it was shot from.
The giant man I saw earlier extends a hand to me, blood and sweat swirling together on the deep-brown skin of his face. “Come. Please. We’re here to help.”
I back away. A bearded man barrels toward him, knocking him to the ground. I take the opportunity to run, moving around a woman wailing on the ground, her arm bent at an unnatural angle.
The jungle’s dense foliage should allow me to blend in quickly. As I race toward it, I frantically look around for Amira. Maybe she already made it into the jungle. Together, our chances of surviving are better.
I see her and my heart plummets into my stomach. The dark-haired man who had been standing in front of his group is now carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She’s punching him in the back, but it’s not fazing him. He breaks into a run, calling out orders to the rest of the group.
They’re leaving. And Amira’s not the only person they’re trying to take prisoner. Others are resisting as people work together to tie them up with what looks like wire.
Sweat rolls down my brow as I consider my options, the blazing sun a torch I can already feel burning my skin.
I don’t owe Amira anything. I hardly know her. If I go into the jungle, I can save myself. If I go after her with no weapons, we’ll both get captured—or worse.
“No!” she screams, slapping and punching at her captor’s lower back as she hangs upside down. “Briar!”
